Winter Fuel Payment
Josh MacAlister Excerpts(3 weeks, 6 days ago)
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Louise Jones
The costings take into account the uplift in the numbers of people claiming pension credit, as they are entitled to do.
Josh MacAlister (Whitehaven and Workington) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that the changes made to the winter fuel payment to secure it for those most in need actually save £1 billion net, with the extra costs of the rise in those claiming pension credit? Does she also agree that the Government’s choices across the board mean that we are able to make the decision to protect the triple lock, nearly double the warm home discount and get the NHS back on its feet? It is pretty shocking that we have so far not heard one example of how the Conservative party would make different choices to do those same things.
Louise Jones
Sadly, it is a feature of this debate that it is very easy for Members across the Opposition Benches to say, “You shouldn’t do something,” but very difficult to say what should be done instead.
Oral Answers to Questions
Josh MacAlister Excerpts(4 weeks, 1 day ago)
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Liz Kendall
I agree with a lot of what the right hon. Gentleman says. Patience is never my greatest virtue, but I ask him and the House to be patient and to look at the full proposals, which we will put forward imminently.
Josh MacAlister (Whitehaven and Workington) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Andrew Western)
The Department supports care leavers aged 16 to 24 through an extensive range of interventions to help them into employment. For example, care leavers who start an apprenticeship are signposted to a £3,000 bursary from their training provider, and they can still receive universal credit if they are on a low income. More broadly, under the new youth guarantee, all young people aged 18 to 21 in England, including care leavers, will have access to support to enter employment, education or training opportunities.
Josh MacAlister
Some 39% of care-experienced young people are not in education, employment or training—three times the average rate—and that is costing the UK over £145 million a year in lost tax revenue alone. We cannot achieve the ambition of getting Britain working unless we unlock the potential of this amazing group of young people. Do Ministers agree that we need to take bold, imaginative action to radically improve the number going into work?
Andrew Western
My hon. Friend is absolutely correct to highlight those statistics. The number of care leavers not in education, employment or training is absolutely unacceptable, and he will be stunned to hear that I am in full agreement with him.
Income Tax (Charge)
Josh MacAlister Excerpts(5 months, 1 week ago)
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Josh MacAlister (Whitehaven and Workington) (Lab)
On 4 July, the British people voted decisively for one clear promise: the promise of change. The Budget delivers on that promise. We have change, from years of short-termism, unmanaged decline and a weak, unbalanced economy with anaemic growth, to a long-term plan for the future of Britain that invests in the British people, our public services and our infrastructure.
The theme of today’s debate is protecting working people, so I put on record my strong support for two particular measures. First, I support the substantial increase in the minimum wage for all workers, but in particular the massive 18% boost for apprentices. That is a pay rise of £1,800 a year for an apprentice working 30 hours a week. I have more apprentices in my constituency than most, because of our nuclear industry, so that minimum wage rise will make a considerable difference.
Secondly, I support the Government’s £240 million investment to tackle the root causes of economic inactivity and to support people back into work. The large number of people, particularly young men, who have fallen out of the labour market since the pandemic is an enormous social and economic problem. I know that the Front-Bench team will grip that problem with the resources that this Budget provides.
I will also make a wider point about investment and getting Britain building again. The Conservative plan was for public investment in this Parliament to decline sharply. Low public investment has been a feature of our economic formula for years, and the results are well known: poor infrastructure, low productivity and sluggish growth. A boost of £100 billion over the next five years will begin to reverse the under-investment we have seen from the Conservatives and act as a magnet to attract significantly more private investment.
The key question is how we put that money to use in generating growth. Taking west Cumbria as an example, we have a coastal railway line that runs from Carlisle to Barrow through my constituency. If we upgrade that line, we get 1,500 extra jobs and £1 billion of gross value added to the UK economy. To realise the benefits of high levels of public investment and the jobs that come with it, we also need planning reform. Without that, the public investment commitment in the Budget will get caught in a web of delays, diversions and high costs.
The Budget is welcome. It is one measure that the Government have taken, and there are a series of others, including planning reform, that will help get Britain back on track.